After weeks away, meals at home are always that much more appreciated — even if it’s frozen, container-shaped leftovers. Don’t you agree?

Lucky for us we had two generous servings of Grandma Marie’s split pea pork hock soup my mom sent us back to NC with many months ago, quietly waiting in the deep-freeze to provide comfort, memories of home + family, and brightness to an ominous-looking afternoon last weekend. Even luckier is that soups like this get better with time, and reheat very well.

As with many topics of culinary history, the origin of cooking foods encased in salt is up for debate. Several cultures lay claim to the invention — from the Iberian Spaniards and Portuguese, to the Mediterranean Italians and Greeks, and further east to the ancient Persians and Chinese.

Whatever the truth, salt-baking, or salt-roasting, has stood the test of time. Similar to tagines and clay pots, this centuries-old method traps steam heat to infuse moisture, amplify flavor and retain nutrients. So remarkably tender and succulent are the foods cooked inside these paradoxical salt igloos, that this otherwise humble technique has even been likened to the light-years-more-high-tech magic of sous vide.

“What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have not yet been discovered.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, ca. 1878

When it comes to our yard, weed control isn’t the occasional battle — it’s all-out war. Despite the terrible quality of our soil, there is no shortage of seeds being blown in or washed up from heavy winds and powerful rainstorms we’re accustomed to ten months out of the year. And for every one that germinates and is eventually plucked out, another three take root.

I’m typically not very forgiving of things that grow where they should not be, but there are those few that I, probably in folly, allow to live, even encourage. Like this little flowering vine currently trailing at the base of our magnolia tree. Or a similar vine that twirled up the main trunk of our fig tree, with its curly-cue tendrils and dainty white flower bunches. Or the wild grains that shoot up in clumps, a golden reminder of Midwestern fields in fall.

Showstopping desserts don’t have to mean fancy techniques or expensive ingredients or even butter and chocolate. Sometimes it’s more about a willingness to change the way we think about every-day food items we keep. Sometimes favoring simplicity + ingenuity wins the day.

What are you up to this weekend? A system of storms rolled across the eastern seaboard earlier this week, bestowing upon us unseasonably early autumnal feels — highs in the upper 70s, overnights in the lower 60s, humidity cut nearly in half to around 50%!